MDV Mostro di Venezia
by Dodectron
Summary: We all know that Ezio can kill any man he wishes; but what about any beast? An exotic pet escapes from its cage and threatens the citizens of Venice. Mild coarse language but will only be in Italian.
1. Sia sfuggito!

Black waves lapped at a weathered dock, the surface of the bay constantly moving and the bright reflection of the moon distorted to look more like a streak of lightning. A large merchant ship had been tied up at the docks earlier that day, and only now were the sailors unpacking the last piece of cargo which was a box the height of a man, the length of a gondola and the width of a large crate. The longer sides of the box were barred with wood, and the box itself rested on thick poles which extended away from the main body. Four men struggled with the heavy load, and three others watched apprehensively as it was lowered to the smelly floor. Heavy snarling and spitting noises came from within the crate, and a large black claw suddenly sprouted from the darkness inside. They all jumped away from the box in fright, but after a few seconds of terrified silence, the leader of the men snorted and gestured sharply at his heavyset fellows.

"Stolti! Prendere questa bestia al suo comandante, o sarà la testa!" he shouted, and made a big show of shoving his comrades towards the crate while laughing dismissively. The thick breathing of whatever was inside was still frightening to the superstitious seamen, but they obeyed their orders without question. Four men heaved the poles onto their shoulders, and set off into a deserted street, followed by an escort of the rest of the men.

The city was nearly deserted this late at night, though a few beggars attempted to beg some coins from their fat purses. They recieved nothing but a laugh in the face for their efforts, and a snarl from the wooden cage made the poor people jump and run away in terror. Now the night was silent apart from the heavy breathing of those that carried the cage and the occasional angry snarls from within their burden. Silhouetted against the starry sky, archers kept a keen eye on the streets below, occasionally glancing over the roofs to make sure the citizens were behaving themselves and not throwing parties on top of their houses. A group of thin, scrawny men and one woman scrambled over handholds and disappeared from sight, disturbed by the sailors walking past what looked like a dead body they had been looting, but the men didn't really want to know if it was a dead body or not.

The men were frightened, eyes darting from one shadow to the next. They had been promised a slightly larger pay than normal for carrying this cage to its owner, but so little hardly seemed fair anymore; what was inside? Could it be some exotic pet from far away? From the terrifying sounds it made, they doubted that idea. Perhaps it was a demon? No animal had claws that were purely black, after all, as well as that deep, throaty growl that made the hair on the back of their necks stand on end. One of the men carrying the crate stumbled in a deep, muddy puddle, full of who-knows-what, and the rest of them held their breath until he gained his feet again. They shouted insults at him, infuriated that they had shown fear in front of their fellows, and he cowered nder the weight of their voices. Eventually the shouts petered out, but no-one had moved forward a single step. They all glanced sideways at each other.

At that moment, a shape appeared and leapt from the roof at the same time, landing directly on the crate with a shoulder-cape billowing behind his body almost like the wings of an eagle. The sudden, great weight made all of the sailors drop the crate with yelps of varying volume, and the man simply leaped forward again, running as fast as he could away until his black robes blended with the shadows of a tower up ahead. The sailors warily edged towards the crate again, hoping it hadn't been damaged, but before they could touch it what looked like a small army of irate archers landed on the crate as well in a quick succession, two of them breaking their legs and screeching their heads off while the others merely grunted before chasing their elusive quarry.

The walls of the cage were built to withstand considerable force, but only from within; the pressure and weight on the weaker roof caused the sides of the crate to crack and splinter, something which did not escape the attention of the imprisoned creature. It had been excited by the scent of fear and adrenalin, and the drumming of feet on its roof made it start slamming into the walls of its prison enthusiastically. Being weakened, it easily broke down a hole wide enough to crawl through, which it did. The sailors were too distracted to look, craning their necks to see if the running man had been caught (by the sounds of the courtyard, he had been, but was still putting up a fight) and so the animal easily escaped without being followed.

One of the sailors turned back to the crate with a worried expression on his face, and frowned at the splintered hole in the crate's side. "Poi ? Oh no! Egregio Signore, sia sfuggito! Attendere... è che lassù?" he yelped, pointing a shaking finger at the roof of a house to their left. All of the sailors spun around to look up with wide eyes.

A whirlwind of black and white, and their screams welcomed the new day.


	2. Del Mostro Prima Vittima

_Wow! An update already! Yeah, no Ezio yet, though the stats did say Ezio was in this story. Don't worry; I promise he'll be in the next chapter ;) now, this chapter is rated T as there are blood and injuries. Not much of course, but if you don't like that kind of thing, avoid this._

_Disclaimer: Do not own Assassin's Creed. Ya?_

_Italics: Italian_

"Alberta! Come back inside, it is time for the_ celebrazione_!"

"No, mamma! I saw a kitten!"

"Listen to me, _signora_ Alberta, get inside now or you will be punished!"

A small girl hid in a wet and dirty alley, her black hair held back by a small hat and facing the wall. She was stroking a small grey kitten, which was meowing piteously with a mouth devoid of teeth. Alberta bit her lip and creased her face with a frown. Being only five years old, she already knew what death was, and the sight of the poor kitten made her worry that it could die.

Her mother was half-hanging from a window, trying to see where her child was playing. It was her daughter's name-day, where they celebrated St. Albert's birthday, which Alberta was named after. Her family was not rich enough to get enough for friends to visit, but they had managed to get a cake this year for the family to share.

This was all well and good, but the little girl still hadn't come back inside, which was worrying for her mother. The guards had been worryingly angry recently due to their leader being murdered in his sleep, and the mother knew they would not hesitate to either hurt or terrify her child.

"Alberta?" she called out, irritated that there had been no answer to her earlier statement. When there was still no response, she sighed and pulled herself back inside; shutting the window once she stood up. Her husband was waiting at the table with their bakery-bought cake, and the three other children were starting to fidget, being faced with food their young eyes had hardly seen before.

"Luigi, she still has not come. She says that there is a kitten," the lady grumbled, and Luigi shook his head. "I will go and speak to her. Do not worry _mia bella_, she does love animals, after all," he said comfortingly, hugging his wife before heading down the wooden steps.

The minute he stepped outside, his foot landed in a puddle of the family water. "_Cazzo_!" he muttered, stepping from the puddle and striding along the alley just outside their home.

"Alberta? Where are you?" the man called, pausing to check a large haystack for any sign of his wayward daughter. "Please daughter, where have you hidden from me? Is this a new game?" he asked after a moment, feeling a stir of unease in his midsection. There was still no sight of their raven-headed Alberta, and a foul stench in the air made his nose wrinkle.

Finally Luigi began to jog, and then run, flying down each alley that Alberta knew of with a sense of growing fear. There was absolutely no sign of the girl, and soon he had to come to a stop, panting hard. As he leant against the wall of the pathway beside the one he had first checked, something dribbled onto his head. Luigi shook his head half-heartedly from irritation, but more of whatever it was then dripped onto his ear.

Finally he could stand straight once more, and the father glanced up to see what had fallen onto his head. After a quick look, he turned away to continue the search. Once he had taken a few steps, Luigi suddenly realized just what he had seen.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" echoed his anguished scream, causing the nearby pigeons to fly from their perches in shock.

His little girl's eyes stared emptily into the distance, as if seeing some far-away land and the smile on her face belied the terrible wounds all over her body. Her hand and arm were flung out over the edge of the roof, a cut somewhere under her bloodied clothing making blood drip from her fingers.

"No, my darling, my daughter, you can't be…," he cried, running to the wall and reaching up desperately. His Alberta did not respond, and Luigi fell against the bricks and mortar of the building upon which her body lay. The distant thought of the cake and celebrations back at the house caused greater grief than before, and he bowed his head, allowing his tears to strike the ground like a small rain shower.

In the depths of his misery, the distraught man did not hear a deep, rumbling growl behind him. Nor did he notice a new smell of refuse and decay. Something slunk past at the end of the narrow walkway, and it paused at the sight of a human. Sinking lower to the ground, it slowly made its way towards him, staring first at the man and then at its previous victim atop a house.

With the sound of a rabid and infuriated cat, the monster struck with bright white teeth and large black claws.

_Celebrazione: celebration_

_Signora: lady_

_Mia bella: My Beautiful_

_Cazzo: F***_


	3. Morte di un Tiranno

_Safety and peace, brothers and sisters- another chapter! Entirely written at school too :D hooray for lifting of restrictions. I gotta keep this short so I can finish some geography work, but enjoy this chapter._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's creed, but I do own the random target and awesome stupid brute._

The pigeon-cage was in an inconvenient place, for someone who couldn't climb to save their lives. However, for someone who could free-run across rooftops before they could walk, it was easy enough to swing across a maze of obstacles so they could reach the coop.

The man in white and red robes carefully opened the cage door, watching the birds inside until he selected one with a piece of parchment attached to its leg. His hand slowly reached out and closed around the pigeon's wings and back so it could not fly. The bird was used to this treatment. The man plucked the parchment away and released the pigeon back into its house before unfurling the shred of paper and reading it quickly.

'_Signor Auditore,_

_A man has been stealing from the merchants with false rules, and uses his guards to silence the opposition. End his life and you will receive a weighty reward._

_Search for him near the Palazzi Ducale di Venezia._

_A.'_

The Assassin silently tore the paper into shreds and allowed it to scatter from his hand into crevices and corners. He knew that the writer of this note would not appreciate being caught giving him a mission. He glanced over the rooftops and strode towards one of his markers, where trained pigeons made nests and showed him a safe place to jump from. Assumedly other assassins had bred and trained the birds to do so.

With a sudden rush forwards and a mighty leap from the roof, Ezio Auditore da Firenze flew through the air and landed safely in a cart of pink leaves.

The Palazzo was filled with citizens, all of them listening with disgusted faces to a man that arrogantly claimed his lordship over all commerce. He had taken the place of a crier, who was glaring at him from the sidelines. Ezio lowered his head and shuffled through the crowd slowly, doing his best to not alert his prey to the presence of an enemy.

"And so, the new taxes will be high, but fair, my friends! For how can I protect you without gold to pay my soldiers?" the fat man announced, waving his hands about in a generous manner. The people booed and hissed, but the soldiers ringing the crowd moved in to silence the opposition before it got out of hand. Ezio was shoved out of the way by a very _very_ large man, one that he commonly nicknamed 'brutes'. His axe nearly brained the Assassin by accident, and to his surprise the behemoth muttered an apology while moving towards the stage. He smirked after a few seconds, pleased that he hadn't been recognized; what a novelty to be treated like an ordinary citizen.

The crowd parted before him as if they could sense who and what he was, cold shivers running up everyone's spines and hair raising on the backs of their necks. The assassin was sure that a few of them knew his mission, but no-one spoke out. Their eyes surreptitiously followed his movements, and a few of the braver men and women smiled and nodded. Once Ezio was at the foot of the stage, he whirled about, gave a courteous bow, and threw himself at his target with both blades outstretched.

Both weapons sank into the man's chest at the same time, both entering the heart and killing him instantly. They fell towards the floor, a dead man and his killer, and the hidden blades retracted back into the sheaths as Ezio closed the corpse's eyes. "_Non sapevo vostro nome, ma ho ancora onore vostro sacrificio. Requiescat in pace_."

All hell broke loose as he shoved himself away from the body, an axe thudding into the wood his foot had been a moment before. The assassin leapt into the crowd and wove his way out of it, where he could sprint to an alley. Two archers he hadn't noticed before were firing arrows at the fleeing figure, but their arrows only bounced off the stones just behind his feet in a shower of sparks. Making it past the mouth of the passage, Ezio turned off the path quickly and jumped into a haystack that he had known to be there.

A brute, three regular guards and two fast runners pounded past his hiding-place, shouting angrily and waving their weapons in the air. The Italian man watched them silently until they were out of sight and then climbed out of the bale of hay, brushing stray pieces of straw from his uniform. Loud footsteps made the assassino freeze.

Without further ado Ezio ran at the wall in front of him and used his momentum to run _up_ the stones, his hands grasping protruding window ledges, ridges in the rock and eventually the roof edge. His feet helped to haul his body up the building, until Ezio was free to run across the roofs of Venezia.

Or he would have been free to run, if there wasn't something standing in front of him.

The shadow of a tower fell over the figure before him, which made no sound, only watching him with bright and fierce eyes. It took a step forward, and he immediately stepped backwards, a hand falling to his sword. The figure stepped forward again, where the sunlight fell onto its face. Ezio felt an icy hand clutch his heart. Oh no…

"R-Rosa?" he asked timidly, wrapping his fingers around the falchion's handle. The woman in front of him laughed, and walked straight up to him, laying a flirtatious hand on his shoulder. "Hello, signor Ezio. You seem afraid- surely I haven't disturbed you?" she asked in a whisper, pulling away to an irritatingly close spot, though definitely not close enough for the befuddled teenager. Rosa knew how hard it was for the kid to keep from doing what he did to any other girl on the street.

"Oh, uh, Rosa. It's good to see you. Did-" he started, but was cut off by the thief girl shoving him backwards just as an arrow streaked between them. "Run, Ezio! I will meet you later!" she hissed, turning tail and fleeing like a startled rabbit. He mentally swore to never tell her that he had ever imagined her as a rabbit, and did the same, only in the opposite direction.

Neither saw the eyes watching them from the darkest shadows in the street below. A deep snarl echoed about the deserted street, and a black tail flicked in and out of the main shadow. It stood, shook its entire body from head to tail, and began to follow the weaker female to its den.


	4. Nero Diavolo

**Hello, everyone! I am so so sorry for not posting this sooner, but I got writer's block and then got stuck into Prototype ^_^ btw, go and read the stories I made for Prototype, if you have time. I'm happy with them.**

**Anyway, thanks to L'Artista Brilliante for giving a review, and I'm glad you think so, as I am not holding anything back with this story. I was so excited when I got new people watching the story, so you should all know that every new alert, fave or review gets more chapters, as I was jump-kicked into writing more because of those lovely people. There isn't a translation guide below, as I am getting tired of translating stuff everyone knows already.**

**Anyway, I don't own Assassin's creed but I do own this random noble and the awesome Monstro. Venice belongs to Italy. O.O**

**Rated K+**

A door slammed in the richly decorated _Palazzo_, hurried footsteps sounding down a cream and gold hallway and the sound of shouting in other parts of the palace. The man that rushed was short and flustered from his hurry, an envelope clutched in a sweaty hand. He quickly wiped his face with the cuff, pausing outside of a pair of thick wooden doors that were decorated with engravings of winged lions. The man looked down at his feet and winced before shoving both doors open in one go, though his entry was far more timid.

"_Messer_? I have a message from the shipping company, they say that your cargo has... er... escaped, _signor_?" the short man asked in confusion, having read the note before giving it to his master. The room he had entered was large, for a bedroom, decorated with thick cushions and heavy drapes to block out the sun. The only source of light was the sun, streaming from the door, and a nearly-dead fire that still spat sparks and smoke.

"_Signor_? Are you sleeping, and shall I leave?" he asked awkwardly. The blankets shuddered, and were then thrown back by an angry hand, an extraordinarily fat man lurching out from his richly coloured and covered bed. His face screwed into an unwelcoming sneer, and the fat man waddled up to his messenger, roughly grabbing the front of his shirt.

"What did I say about waking me from my beauty sleep, _idiota_? Do you not remember what happened to the last man to walk so brazenly into my private rooms? Well? Do you?" the overweight noble half-screamed into his underling's face. The colour fled from the messenger's face, and he spluttered, hanging limply in his master's grip. Suddenly the hand that clutched his shirt let go, and the short man fell to the floor.

"Now, _per favore_, tell me why you have disobeyed my orders."

"Please, _messer_, I came to give you a letter. It was opened by the guard as a security measure, and he said-"

"Wait! Speak slower, pest, or I'll find a way to keep your tongue from wagging at all! And what do you mean; the guard read my personal letter? _Cazzo_, private messages are private for a reason!" the fat man spat, towering over the messenger who had yet to climb to his feet once more.

"I am sorry, but please, the note said that your cargo was damaged on its way-"

"WHAT?"

"Yes, uh, the box was broken by a disturbance in the streets and the cargo was... lost? I am sorry _messer_, but how can cargo escape?" the short man asked timidly, scrambling backwards slowly so he had room to get back up.

The fat man did not respond to the question, but instead fled from his rooms, pulling on a robe while still going as fast as his short legs could carry him. Not being fit enough to stand even a light jog without becoming exhausted, he arrived at his office panting and gasping for breath, clothes askew and eyes slightly bulging from their sockets.

"Guards! GUARDS!" he screeched, attempting to pull his clothes into submission and out of their wrinkles. Soon after his shout, a troupe of five heavily armed guards arrived in two straight lines and with one brute at its head. They strode to their leader and knelt, waiting for their orders.

"I need you men to find something for me," the noble said with a vicious snarl on his face.

The brute at the head of his gang of soldiers stood and walked forwards, saluting respectfully. "_Signor_, what is it that you need us to do?" he growled in a guttural voice.

"A little pet of mine has escaped. I need you to bring it back to me alive, and in good condition."

The brute blinked, clearly surprised. "Sir, we are soldiers. Do you think it wise for us to go and hunt down little animals for you? Surely we could be of more use here?"

The noble huffed and sat down at his desk, his brow crinkled with suppressed anger. "You are MY soldiers! Mine! You will do what I ask, and you shall do so without hesitation! And besides, this pet is not a little animal... it is a black devil in the shape of an animal!"

The soldiers muttered amongst themselves fearfully, until the head brute waved a hand, bringing immediate silence. He then turned to his master and bowed. "We shall bring back this black devil, I assure you, _messer_."

"You had better. Otherwise I will see you all in the places that the _assassin_ has been known to lurk within. Dismissed."

All five guards trooped back out of the room and out of the _palazzo_ in grim silence. The noble sat back and snickered, hands clasping behind his head. He would have his devil brought back to him, and then he would have it trained to follow the scent of that cursed Auditore Assassin. There was no telling if the man in white would attempt to kill him, just another noble, but that was not good enough. He needed confirmation.

"My little _Nero Diavolo_ shall be a swift and merciless killer, and it will become the perfect solution to this problem. Hah!"


End file.
